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Golfers who played a lot of baseball have trouble with two major movements in golf. The release of the bat in baseball has a striking similarity to golf, but the pattern is delayed in time. This causes baseball golfers to struggle with clubface control and frequently hit slices and pulls. Also, for whatever reason, baseball players tend to have less axis tilt than is required for optimal driving. It can work with the shorter clubs, but a good hitter in baseball will have to make a few major changes if they want to be a good striker in golf..
Tags: Intermediate, Beginner
WEBVTT
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in this golf smart insight we're gonna
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talk about adjusting from a life of
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baseball now baseball and golf have a
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lot of similar patterns built into them
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so it's very common if you have played a
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fair amount of baseball or if you just
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built very sound baseball patterns for
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these patterns that show up in your golf
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swing so one of the interesting little
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factoids that I like to mention is if
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you look at the celebrity golf
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tournaments you know I used to watch a
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ton of them when I was playing a lot of
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golf or when I was playing tournament
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golf when you watch these celebrity
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tournaments you'll see some of the
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movements that these ex-athletes make
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from their sport in their golf swing
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well the best baseball players tended to
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be the pitchers now part of that's you
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know the way that they differ they train
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differently in the gym their physical
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capabilities but part of it is just
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their their movement patterns aren't as
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ingrained for hitting as they are for
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throwing and the golf swing seems to be
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a little bit more like a throwing
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pattern than it does like the baseball
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hitting pattern there's two major issues
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that I see when I work with players who
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tell me that they've played a lot of
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baseball and they tend to show up with
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some of these patterns the first one is
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the release now in in proper I I've
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played competitive golf played
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competitive basketball tennis a lot of
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sports baseball was one of the ones that
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I did not have a lot of experience with
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so I'm going off second hand not first
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personal experience here but in the
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proper release in baseball you're gonna
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tend to come through with your hands
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parallel to each other right so it'll
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look more like it drops into this plane
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and then this hand will basically stay
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on top until you make contact with the
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golf ball and then you'll see them go
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through kind of you know into that home
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run hitter finish well I actually had a
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MLB scout who said Tyler Mike I'm a
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great hitter so when I had him on I was
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like well we gotta get you hidden a
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baseball so in addition to looking his
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golf swing gave him a baseball bat
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attach the sensor to it what was really
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interesting was the hand movements that
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he made for the baseball swing were
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almost identical to that of the golf
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swing the only problem
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was they were delayed in the baseball
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swing about a tenth of a second this is
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why many good hitters struggle with a
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slice in golf because in baseball that
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that release is gonna happen no no no no
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make contact with the golf ball and now
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we're going to have the ulnar deviation
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rotation all of the stuff that we see in
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their golf swing in the golf swing if I
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brought that into the baseball pattern
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it would be nope nope nope nope I
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haven't made contact with the ball now
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I'm gonna start releasing and now I make
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contact with the golf ball so that
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subtle difference in timing can cause
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some huge problems with clubface control
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and so part of what baseball players end
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up having to do is to adjust for this
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delayed clubface control the second
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thing is lack of weight shift now
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there's many different philosophies as
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far as what is the proper baseball
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hitting technique whether you should
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stay into the front or stay in the back
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leg whether you should actually be kind
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of having all your pressure going into
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the front leg there's there's a lot of
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there's just as much controversy in the
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baseball hitting the world as there is
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in the golf world what I tend to see
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with baseball players is when I when I
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put the sensors on their body they tend
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to have a little bit less of this
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lateral movement during transition and
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they tend to just have this a little bit
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more of a spin axis now they'll usually
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have a very good kinematic sequence
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they'll have very good energy transfer
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but because of this lack of lower body
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lateral shift because of this lack of
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access tool they will tend to have path
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issues that actually complement their
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poor release so whether it's the chicken
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or the egg of you got to fix the path
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before you fix the release I tend to fix
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the release before I fix the path but
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that's totally up to you what I'm saying
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is if you are a baseball player and
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you're coming to golf these are the
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things that you're gonna have to get
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used to you're gonna have to get used to
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having your lower body ahead of your
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upper body which would basically cause
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you hit pop ups in baseball but in golf
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this is really good because this helps
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get the proper kind of hand path through
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transition and then the other thing is
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you have to get used to this little move
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I call the motorcycle move
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and how those arms are gonna release
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which I go into great detail in the
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release section so if you're a baseball
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player those are probably the two
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biggest areas you'll have to pay
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attention to but the good news is you
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already know how to sequence your body
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and rotate it explosively you just have
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to learn how to get it on the proper
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path for hitting a golf club which has a
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clubface instead of a baseball bat which
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doesn't